Anti-Trump Protests In At Least Seven Cities; Why Did the Polls Get It So Wrong? Aired 8-9p ET

Aired November 9, 2016 - 20:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[20:00:07] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Erin, thanks very much.

It is an unprecedented day after an unprecedented election. The breaking news right now, there are some protests in New York and Chicago over the election of Donald Trump. The protests in New York making their way to Trump Tower.

Jim Acosta joins me now.

What's the scene like there, Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, Donald Trump said that he started a movement in this country. It seems he started another one, and this one is against him. We're in Midtown Manhattan right now, right across from Trump Tower.

And, Anderson, as I was walking up to this live shot about ten minutes ago, this was all starting to form in those moments, about, I would say, 5,000 to 10,000 people are gathered here at this intersection of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.

As you can hear the protesters behind me, they're saying, "Hey, hey, Donald Trump has got to go." I'm hearing, "Donald Trump is not my president." We're seeing all sorts of signs like this one behind me and so on.

It just goes to show you the election results maybe in, but half of this country, a very large portion of this country is not satisfied.

Let's show you the crowd and show you some of what we're talking about here. We'll pan and show what's happening in this crowd. We're standing almost in the middle of this intersection, Anderson. It is completely covered from one side of the street to another with protesters.

There is a bus in the middle of the intersection that has presumably been stopped by this protest. And this crowd, Anderson, goes wall the way from the middle of this intersection all the way over to Trump Tower.

Now, during the summer, we're standing outside Trump Tower, doing this live shot, reporting on Donald Trump's candidacy, we would have protesters from time to time, but nothing like this. This is absolutely as far as I'm concerned, from what I've seen, the largest anti-Trump protest that we've seen so far.

And it just seems to be growing. It's this organic sort of, you know, operation Trump, if you want to call it that, occupy Trump, maybe it should be called, experience. And at the moment these folks are not going anywhere.

COOPER: Jim, let's talk about how the president-elect spent his day. What did he do today?

ACOSTA: He was basically hunkered down behind closed doors with his top advisers dealing with the shock of this election, also starting to plan his transition. He did get an invitation from the president of the United States to meet with him tomorrow. He's going to do that tomorrow morning at 11:00 in the Oval Office.

I've also been able to confirm here in the last several minutes that Donald Trump will also meet with the speaker of the house, Paul Ryan. That's also happening in Washington, a busy day for the president- elect in D.C.

But, Anderson, you know, obviously this is a new development out here, one that we did not expect, we did not see coming, and is one that I think Donald Trump is going to have to deal with.

COOPER: What's the new administration looking like? It seems there are a number of familiar faces, obviously people who have been loyal to Donald Trump all along. Do we have a sense of how that is shaping up?

ACOSTA: Well, I can tell you from talking to some top advisers before the election that some of them were not expecting this result, and so while they are making some progress, and they've put out some planners, they're in the process of doing this as we speak.

Reince Priebus, the RNC chair, favored to be the White House chief of staff. Chris Christie is also mentioned in that conversation. Newt Gingrich has been talked about for secretary of state. Bob Corker is also in that conversation. Rudy Giuliani for attorney general, homeland security, possibly, and so on.

So, this is always the case, Anderson, with elections. The campaign moves into the White House to govern, and so, you're going to see a lot of the same advisers on our air and other channels, heading into this election, showing up in the new Trump administration, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Jim Acosta. Jim, thanks very much. We'll check in with you over the next few hours.

Almost every single poll going into the election was wrong, no doubt about it. That's the only conclusion to be wrong. The analysis of why the polls were wrong will surely go on for a while. After all the predictions, the statistics and who have 1 percent chance of winning in the end, the numbers that matter are the ones that come on election day, the number of people who actually come out to vote.

If you're talking numbers, you have to talk to John King. I don't know if you've been to sleep, John, at all, but you've done an amazing job. So much to talk about in the lead-up to the election of Trump's narrow path to victory.

What changed? How did he pull it off?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, just like the last time we had a new president, it was Barack Obama in 2008, it's Donald Trump now. We're talking about changing, rewriting, recoloring the map of American politics.

Let's look a little bit of what Donald Trump did last night. Pennsylvania, not since 1988 was it red. It's red tonight.

Michigan, we haven't completely called yet. We probably will in the morning. It hasn't been red since 1988. It's red tonight.

It's been even longer since Wisconsin was red. It is red tonight.

Ohio a traditional swing state, but critical to both Obama victories.

[20:05:02] Florida, a traditional swing state, critical to both Obama victories. Iowa, the state that launched then-Senator Barack Obama to national prominence -- all red today, all red last night.

Let's just go back in history. There's your reminder, that's what changed. Look at all that blue in those circles. This is Donald Trump's America now. This is Donald Trump's Republican Party.

When you look through the results, it is a sweeping mandate when it comes to the big industrial states. Donald Trump won across the Midwest. There's a bit of a myth out there that these white voters who nobody knew about came outside of woodwork. That's not true. Donald Trump won the election with fewer votes than Mitt Romney and fewer votes than John McCain.

I want to show you something quickly. One of the big problems here and one of the big issues for the Democratic Party going forward is the Democratic coalition did not come out to play. This is in Wayne County. This is in Detroit.

If you were with us last night, we were asking, did Hillary Clinton come back in Michigan? Five hundred and seventeen thousand votes out of Wayne County. This is the biggest priority for Democrats in Michigan, 517. President Obama four years ago had more than 595,000 votes out of Wayne County. If Hillary Clinton came close to that, it is more than enough to make up a very narrow statewide difference of 11,000 votes. They didn't turn out.

Over in Wisconsin, another state that we are stunned today is red not blue, same issue. Milwaukee County, the Clinton campaign told us, don't call the state, stay up, these votes are going to come. She gets 289,000 votes out of here. President Obama, 328,000 four years ago.

African-Americans and the Democratic base voters simply didn't show up. Donald Trump's white working class voters did. He got a higher percentage of that vote that Mitt Romney, even though his overall number is down. And what we have today, Anderson, is a brand-new conversation about a new Republican Party.

Is this a temporary aberration, and how do the Democrats pick up the pieces?

COOPER: So, what was Trump tapping into in terms of what we see on the map in the numbers, what was he able to tap into in those alleged blue wall states to flip them?

KING: You have to say without a doubt, you know, Bernie Sanders talked about starting a revolution. Donald Trump took that message and turned it into the greatest political disruption of our lifetime.

And let's look at some of the statistics here. When you look, Rust Belt, whites with no college degree, again, the overall national numbers were down from 2012. But Donald Trump's numbers among these working class whites was a higher percentage than Mitt Romney, 62 percent, not 63, again, a nine-point advantage. But again, a nine- point advantage point.

A seven-point jump in Michigan, an eight-point jump in Pennsylvania, a six-point jump in Ohio. He's a billionaire businessman from New York but he had a connection with these workers. And again, he learned a very important lesson from Bernie Sanders talking about trade, I'll rip up the trade agreements, I will get you a job, the political establishment is out to get you. Donald Trump became the messenger.

We have a very different map tonight, Anderson. The disruption and the debate will only continue.

COOPER: You know, John, I think back to I mean, Kayleigh, Jeffrey Lord, a lot of Trump supporters all along were saying what Donald Trump is doing is a movement and they don't see the enthusiasm on Hillary Clinton's side. While the Democrats were saying, we see enthusiasm, Democrats like Hillary Clinton.

Were the Trump supporters right, that there just wasn't the enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton that there was for Donald Trump?

KING: Yes. If anyone gives you one answer for what happened last night, don't believe them. This is very complicated. There are thousands of layers of this, not hundreds of layers, and it's going to take a long time to unravel what happened.

But remember yesterday when we were talking, I said I had a message from a Democrat who was working down here in Pinellas County to turn out the vote. He told me, we turned out our early votes, he drove a few people to the polls that morning and said, whoa. He saw the organic turnout of the Trump supporters.

There's no question that the Donald Trump's campaign, absent the sophisticated turnout of the Clinton campaign, we should give the Republican Party more credit than we were giving it leading into the election for turning out voters. But the combination of the Republican National Committee and Trump's

COOPER: Donald Trump was right all along, he said there was a movement. He said there was that enthusiasm that he didn't see on the other side. He was right.

John King, stay with us.

I want to bring also the panel in. With us tonight, David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Obama, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.

Trump supporters Kayleigh McEnany and Jeffrey Lord, and former Reagan White House political director. Paul Begala, adviser to a pro-Clinton Super PAC, and former Obama administration official, Van Jones.

Gloria, let's start with you. I mean, just in terms of what we know now, that few people knew yesterday.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, we were all talking about the hidden Trump voters. Were they really a thing? And the answer is, yes, they were. And they lived in rural America. And they were not college educated voters.

Hillary Clinton was talking about the gender gap. And what happened to her was she didn't get enough women to vote for her either. That non-college-educated white women went for Donald Trump two to one.

And you talk about the trade issue. All of this didn't come together for Hillary Clinton. And one interesting thing, as I was sort of poring over the exit polls one last time, if we can believe them, by the way.

[20:10:02] We're not sure we can, but --

COOPER: Why should anybody believe any polls ever again?

BORGER: Well, I know, that's why --

COOPER: We asked this question, I asked you that question, John, a couple of weeks ago.

BORGER: Let me give you this number here, which was interesting to me, then we'll hear from John about this, but late deciders, that is who decided within the last two weeks or the last month, went for Donald Trump by ten points over Hillary Clinton. So, if you want to add yet another layer to your thousands of layers, you can talk about the Comey FBI issue confirming a negative story line about Hillary Clinton's integrity and honesty.

KING: I'll say quickly about the polling, the industry is doing a lot of pushback today. We'll be talking about the polling industry, social climate -- COOPER: Of course they would, because it's their livelihood.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: But I do want to say the late polls showed Hillary Clinton with a narrow national lead. Some of them had four points. She's going to win the popular vote, by the tiniest of margins, but she was ahead in the end.

Some of the state polls did have it relatively close. What everybody got wrong was not that there were these Trump voters hiding in the hills, you know, coming out for same-day voter registration to swamp. What they did was run a computer model that said the electorate was going to look like 2012, and the Obama reelection, and it didn't.

BORGER: Right.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is fundamentally the flaw. Polling is only as good as the model that is created to predict. If the model is --

COOPER: The algorithm --

AXELROD: If the model is based on wrong assumptions about the makeup of the electorate, then you're going to run into problems. This is why for example in 2012, the Romney campaign kept claiming they had polls that showed they were going to win the election. But they didn't account for the turnout in the African-American community.

COOPER: But even the Trump campaign, it seemed like their internal numbers, everything we kept hearing in the run-up was their internal numbers, their own polls weren't looking that great.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Let's be clear. They're very bullish about it now, but the Trump campaign did not think he was going to win, especially with the kind of decisive win that he did by the end of the night or early this morning.

But to your point about the model being like 2012. I think that might be true for the Democrats, for the Clinton campaign, maybe they ran a model that was similar to what happened four years ago. But what we saw, because they invited us in, Gloria, you were there, at the RNC, it was on an embargo basis which we can talk about now, before the campaign -- before election day last week, was how they tried to copy you guys, the Obama campaign and using more modern technology, because the technology -- let me just quickly finish my point -- it has evolved, four years, which is light-years when it comes to technology these days.

Their modeling showed -- did not show Trump winning, but it was a lot closer in a lot of the states, because they showed there was a depressed Hillary Clinton vote which is exactly --

COOPER: I want to talk about this more. As we look at New York there, we're seeing some demonstrations in Chicago. I'm told there are also a few in Seattle, demonstrations in Seattle as well. Van, when you look at these images, what goes through your mind?

Among Democrats, today was a difficult day. I mean, there's no doubt about it, Democrats expected to be having a very different day today. But if the situation were reversed and Hillary Clinton had won and the streets were filled with Donald Trump supporters protesting, calling Hillary Clinton names and stuff.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: "Lock her up, lock her up."

COOPER: I think a lot of Democrats would look at that and say, look, they should accept the results of the election. I'm sure a lot of Trump supporters saying this are saying, look, demonstrations are okay, that's what we do in America, but this country has to come together.

JONES: Divided America before, divided America during, divided America after. This is where we are. Had Hillary Clinton won, you would have had protests and you would have had "Lock her up, lock her up," because that's where we are right now.

And, you know, this is frankly the beginning of the anti-Trump resistance. If you talk to the actual people at the base, here is what you hear -- terror. Terrified Latinos, terrified Muslims. I had a Muslim mother asking me, should I leave the country, are they going to intern us?

These throwaway lines from Donald Trump -- you laugh. She was terrified.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: This is why we have a divided country. When the Rust Belt voters complain, the blue staters shake their heads, the NPR go, no, no, you guys are complaining for no good reason. When these people complain and when you have terrified people of color --

COOPER: That's Portland, Oregon, we just saw.

JONES: This will happen all night and it will get bigger and bigger. We have to have empathy for people.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let me assuage these fears for a moment. What we're seeing I think in this protest is the results of an argument prosecuted by the Hillary Clinton campaign that Donald Trump was X, Y, or Z adjective that is synonymous with deplorable.

[20:15:02] It was unfair. It mischaracterized him and there are a lot of voters are scared because of a misportrayal of Donald Trump.

Let me tell you the real Donald Trump is -- the real Donald Trump is the only Republican on the stage who said that Confederate flag in South Carolina has to come down. The real Donald Trump is the only Republican candidate who said what happened to Sandra Bland was bad and I'm going to look into that. Donald Trump has reached across the aisle on these issues and I think

-- I hope, and I think that he will, look into criminal justice reform, that something that can be a bipartisan effort that's put forward in Congress. But to get there, we have to stop stoking fears in individuals and we have to talk about unity here. We can't stoke fears, Van Jones. It's irresponsible to stoke fears.

JONES: That's enough. Now, hold on a second.

Muslim parents that are afraid right now aren't afraid because of kids with signs. They're afraid because he said over and over again that he wanted to ban people of their faith. That lands like a bomb.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: From coming into the country.

JONES: Hold on a second.

LORD: Be accurate.

JONES: You want to explain to me why people who are scared shouldn't be afraid.

MCENANY: But for you to say internment camps --

JONES: Hey, I didn't say interment camps.

MCENANY: You should correct that. You should correct that fear. That's true. Donald Trump has never proposed internment camps. You have to correct that.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: You don't get to lecture me.

You need to back off. You need to have a little bit of empathy and understanding for people who are afraid because your candidate has been one of the most explosively provocative candidates in the history of our country and there's a price to be paid for that.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: Hold on a second.

COOPER: Let him finish and then respond.

JONES: I am not finished and I'm not going to be talked over tonight. I'm not.

You have people who are terrified. And you have to take some responsibility for it. I am not spreading the terror. I am trying to damp it down.

MCENANY: But, Van --

JONES: Let me finish my point. Listen. You have people, Latino families, who say this guy has said he's going to deport millions of people. They don't know, should they sell their homes? They are terrified. That is a real fear.

You have Muslims. You have heard him say nothing good about the Muslim community the entire community.

LORD: That's not true.

JONES: So, they've heard him say -- maybe he said it, but that's not broke through. If you want unity, and I want unity, and I'm working harder for unity than anybody on this stage, I guarantee you, if we want unity, you have to hear the pain first before you tell them it's wrong to hurt.

MCENANY: But what President Obama did is the exact opposite of what you're saying. President Obama, in all due respect to him, all credit to him, he took to that Rose Garden and he stood up there and said, you know what, we knew to unify, we need to come together. We had this sports analogy, we had an intramural match, but we are coming together and we're all Americans and let's give this man a chance. That's what President Obama said.

We need to unify this country and we don't do it by stoking the fears of those people in the streets. We need to unify and come together.

And what Donald Trump did, we need to unify and come together and Donald Trump is the man to lead us forward.

COOPER: What's interesting, we should point out, you're saying this is based on the Clinton campaign, and that's an understandable argument. But it wasn't the Clinton campaign today saying go out into the streets and do this. I think these are people, who -- whether it's a misperception, which you believe it is, but these are people who certainly believe what it seems like they believe what they're out there saying tonight.

MCENANY: President Obama did the responsible thing today.

COOPER: Absolutely. And Hillary Clinton as well.

MCENANY: And Hillary Clinton, to their credit. To unify this country, we have to see the good in one another, not the bad. We can't stoke fears. We can't talk about internment camps.

(CROSSTALK)

MCENANY: Let me finish now. We need to come together. We don't do that by putting false rumors out there about internment camps. We do that by saying let's see the good in one another. That's what Hillary Clinton did. That's what Donald Trump did, it's what Barack Obama did, credit to all three of them for that.

JONES: They overcome what they fought. They sat up here for a year and a half and said people are crying out, and they're not being listened to. People are crying out and they're being run over by the elites. And they have now become what they're talking about. People are now crying out.

I am not spreading rumors about internment camps. That is a real fear. I'm fighting against it. I was on the phone before we came here fighting against it, trying to calm people down.

I'll be doing this Facebook live tonight trying to calm people down.

LORD: Van --

JONES: But you can't brush this stuff off when it's real.

LORD: Van, we've had this conversation before. But you cannot spend 200-plus years marinating in a culture of racism, of racism of the Democratic Party and the American left. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, dividing people by group.

The other day, you said on this set or the other set and talked about, what, white backlash.

JONES: White lash.

LORD: White lash?

JONES: White lash.

LORD: OK. And the point is, Van, because you're dividing white people in the same way you're dividing black people.

JONES: Donald Trump divides people of faith by Muslims and Christians --

LORD: You are not treating people as individual Americans. And that's the problem. And you do it all the time.

JONES: Wag your finger at me, this is going to get bigger and bigger. So, go ahead.

LORD: These are 1960s wannabes.

JONES: No.

LORD: And they're nowhere close to the originals.

BORGER: How do you know?

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Paul, go ahead.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I have a different take as a political professional, which is why didn't we register these people and inspire them to vote? 6,860,432 people fewer people voted Democrat than last time -- 6,860,432.

[20:20:04] Now, that's on me, my party. It's on Hillary. But these young people -- first off, any peaceful protest in America is a beautiful thing. It is.

And this is so far as we know entirely peaceful. But what does the president say every time somebody boos at his rally? He says, don't boo, vote.

COOPER: In your opinion, Donald Trump won, not only he had more people coming out to vote in the right places, not enough people came out to vote for Hillary Clinton.

BEGALA: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. The Democrats picked up seats in the House. Democrats picked up seats in the Senate. And yet, Republicans will control every lever of power in Washington.

COOPER: So, was it an enthusiasm gap?

BEGALA: Absolutely. The system is not rigged.

COOPER: That's what it was. It was an enthusiasm gap.

BEGALA: Absolutely. Yes, sir.

The system is not rigged, which Trump said, even though the --

COOPER: So, Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves?

BEGALA: Absolutely. Absolutely, and myself and the rest of my party for not inspiring these young people. I've tried my hardest. I broke my back, I did. And I know I failed. And I'm dealing with that.

BASH: Paul, can I --

BEGALA: It's cost me a lot of sleep. I need, and others like me, to find a way to connect with these people. I guarantee they're very young and I guarantee their hearts are broken and I guarantee that we should have moved them to vote yesterday rather than protest today.

And that is the failure of the elites and establishment in my party. Some of it is them too, they should have been out there voting. It's mostly on me.

COOPER: We've got to take a quick break. We're going to have a lot more from the panel in the next two hours.

Coming up, a belief that polls didn't capture Trump voters accurately, we're going to look at if that's true. And if so, why did the polls get it so wrong? We're also keeping our eye on multiple protests in a number of cities coast to coast. Protesters gathered against the election of Donald Trump. The latest, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:26:00] COOPER: Our breaking news tonight, there are demonstrations in major American cities across the country tonight over the election of Donald Trump as president. Protesters gathered in Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston, Portland, Oakland, California, Chicago, and New York tonight. The protests in New York has made its way to Trump Tower, where a last crowd has gathered.

Jean Casarez is there. She joins us now.

What's the scene like where you are now, Jean?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, we're right here on Fifth Avenue at Trump Tower. There are thousands of people here, and they've been marching from Union Square. We want to show you all these people. They've really stopped now, because we started with them at Union Square, and we've walked up Fifth Avenue, mainly 40 blocks is how far we've marched with them up to here.

And these people are protesting, of course, the election of Donald Trump. Stop -- you can hear them. Let's listen for a second. They're saying, "Stop Donald Trump," "Donald Trump is not our president."

This was promoted by Socialist Advantage. One of the things that they said the purpose of this rally for was to not only protest the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States but also to protest that the Democratic Party had let them down, let them down with the nominee of Hillary Clinton, that Bernie Sanders could have taken on Donald Trump, but Hillary Clinton could not stop him, thus the Democratic Party could the not stop him.

But the people here tonight say they're here because of Donald Trump being elected last night, they are against that, that he is not their president. Thousands here protesting, having their voice be heard because of the results of the elections last night, Anderson.

COOPER: And how long have they been -- you said they marched up from Union Square, which that's around 14th Street, so they marched up to around, I guess what, 58th Street, yes, which is where Trump Tower is.

CASAREZ: Right.

COOPER: You said it was organized on social media, is that -- and has it been growing, or does it look like it's lessening now around Trump Tower now that it's stopped there?

CASAREZ: No, it's growing, no question about it, it's growing. I think we started with maybe 500 people. And I would say there's thousands now. So, they have joined on.

And yes, it was promoted on social media. You can hear how loud they are here. And they change what they're chanting. It's mainly about Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter. They talk about love Trumps hate and a lot of vulgarities that we can't even repeat to you right now.

COOPER: All right. Jean Casarez, appreciate that.

As the protests go on, Donald Trump is planning to travel to Washington to meet with President Obama and House Speaker Paul Ryan, the president-elect. He's also focusing on picking his cabinet and his advisers and on day one pledges to put his team to work.

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF UNITED STATES: He's going to repeal every single Obama executive order that's stifling jobs and growths in this economy.

We're going to repeal Obamacare, lock, stock, and barrel. And lastly, on day one of this administration, we're going to end the war on coal once and for all.

KAYE: On the first day of the Trump administration, say goodbye to some gun-free zones too.

TRUMP: I will get rid of gun free zone on schools and you have to. And on military bases my first day it gets signed, OK, my first day. There is no more gun-free zone.

KAYE: And if president elect Trump has his way, NAFTA could go away. Day one he plans to notify Canada and Mexico that the trade deal he calls a disaster is officially up for renegotiation. And the ambitious first day for the president-elect.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Orlando.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: A lot promises for the first day are made on this campaign, no doubt about it.

Back with the panel. David Gergen is joining us as well. So we continue to see now demonstrations this one outside of Trump Tower in New York City. It's been moving up north through the island of Manhattan. We're also seeing there demonstration in Chicago. We're also told in Portland, Oregon. Also at Philadelphia as well. There's a -- there you're seeing in Chicago. Different sizes and different places.

David Axelrod, as you watch this, what goes through your mind?

AXELROD: Well, what goes through my mind is that you reap what you sow and the fact is that Donald Trump incited and encouraged and mobilized his base by using language and taking positions that deeply offended these people. And as Van says frightened them as well.

And so this is result of that. I will say though that -- and I agree Kayleigh. I agree with the president. And I said it last night. We have one president at a time. If you respect democracy then our first obligation is to try and make this work. There's also an obligation when you have principle differences to fight hard on them and I expect that will happen as well. But I think the Democratic Party made a mistake by assuming too much about this antipathy to Donald Trump, at somehow it was enough that people were afraid of Trump and that would mobilize the base of the Democratic Party that come out.

I think you have to put some of the blame frankly on the candidate herself and I have great respect for Hillary Clinton. Terribly difficult time for her. But you can't just rely on the negative argument. You've got to inspire people. And, you know, Barack Obama inspired people in a positive way to come out and vote.

And the other thing I would say is you cannot ignore large swaths of the country and expect to be successful. Democrats have to find a way as Obama did when he run in 2008 to talk to white working class democracies. John knows he carried the state of Indiana. He did very well in some of these rural areas and much better than Hillary Clinton did yesterday in those rural areas in 2012. You cannot simply assume that you are going to have enough votes among your base and that you can write off swaths of the country.

BORGER: And we know in the general election she did not step foot in the state of Wisconsin. There were a lot of assumptions made because of this polling that these voters were going to come home to Hillary Clinton no matter what and that women were going to do that too because Barack -- because Donald Trump was making the case on gender for her.

COOPER: David Gergen, I just ...

BORGER: Didn't work that way.

COOPER: ... have you seen demonstrations like this the day after a presidential election in recent memory?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, no, no. And I think we can spend a lot of time. Democratic Party and a lot of time trying to figure out how to adapt to the future election. They will be focusing right now on this.

COOPER: Right.

[20:35:01] GERGEN: Because this could turn the country apart. And here we just had an unprecedented election. Unprecedented upset. And now we got unprecedented protests. And what I think it demonstrates, what it send home to us, is that the divisions of a very, very poisonous campaign will not disappear with three or four nice speeches of unity. It's going take a lot of work to reweave the fabric.

COOPER: So how does that happen, Van? I mean, because that is -- I mean that -- if anything is to work, I mean no matter what you think of Donald Trump or whatever you think Hillary Clinton he is the president of the United States and going to be the president of the United States and this is country has to move forward.

JONES: Does have to move forward. This is my view. And I'm tired. And I apologize if I was too hot earlier. The rebels are on the rise, period. The Trump rebellion, the Sanders rebellion, the Black Lives Matter rebellion. Before that the Tea Party and occupy rebellions. Frankly Obama was kind of a rebellion.

LORD: Yes.

JONES: So the rebels are on the rise and the establishment is on the ropes. And that is the fundamental fact that you have to deal with. And so, what is had it been the other way around, you would have -- this is basically the Sanders rebellion and the Black Lives Matter rebellion in the streets tonight.

COOPER: That's at least people are.

JONES: That is the structure of what you see out here tonight. And so -- and there's the three part of what you see out here tonight, there are the anti-capitalist and socialists who are against the Democratic Party and everything else. They are actually a minority. They are loud but they are a minority.

Then you got the Sanders disappointed folks who want better, but don't now how to get there, and you got Black Lives Matter that sympathizes. That's the structure of this all across the country. We have to find a way to engage with them in their fears. Not tell them they are wrong, not tell them that they should be, but to actually listen, what we didn't do with the Trump rebellion, we should not do with this rebellion.

GERGEN: Yeah it's a bit prone (ph) in that, I think that now ...

(CROSSTALK)

GERGEN: I think I'm very sympathetic with everything you said. I also think there are a lot of white, professional young families who are having a hard time trying to figure out what to tell their kids and how to explain this and how to work with them. I've gotten e- mails about that, what do you think we ought to be saying this or about that? You know, my grandchildren.

And I think this is a very difficult conversation in which we can't just expect Donald Trump to do this alone. Other people have to be constructive here too. In order to create a new environment, a community that feels more inclusive. Because otherwise we're going to be at each other's throats.

COOPER: We're also to expect somebody Donald Trump who it -- I mean, you know, experience leaders, politicians have some experience in this sort of things. To expect somebody like Donald Trump who for -- to all attributes he has may not use to ...

AXELROD: Anderson, this isn't this to me. There are lots of ways in which Donald Trump's inexperience will test him. This is a matter of, sort of the character of leadership. The character of the person. He can view these two ways which is as a something to organize against. Or he can rise as president and say we need to cross this -- close these chasms and address them.

And, you know, I listen Randi Kaye's piece about his first day sense like an active day. I think he ought to think through that agenda a little bit and think about the implications of some of those things on that list in terms of whether it creates a larger chasm or it helps close it.

KING: A good leader adapts to the moment. He had his campaign agenda, lots of candidates have an agenda and then become president and they have to do some ...

COOPER: I remember Guantanamo Bay was going to be close.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Bill Clinton say wouldn't do business with a dictator in Damascus and ...

COOPER: Right. KING: ... and Beijing. Candidate say things, then they become president, it's the hardest job in the world. Everybody so far is saying the right things. Donald Trump gave a very gracious consolatory speech last night, even if your not Donald Trump supporter, you should applaud what he said. Last night he try to bring the country together.

Hillary Clinton today, the president stay (ph). Everybody saying the right things. The question in the next critical 10 weeks. We have 70 days. We have 10 weeks. Is what do they do? And this is a test for Donald Trump and it's also a test for his opponents. Does he see this and say ingrates or does he see this and say I need these people. I have to find a way to talk to them. Can he travel and do town halls in this period.

There are international leaders who want to meet him before he takes office, because they're nervous about what he's going to do in the world. Who he surrounds himself with the decisions he makes over the next -- we talked about this Monday night in our final thoughts or what's going to come. I never anticipate -- the country is so divided. Racial lines, gender lines, education lines, left and rights. Blue state, red states. This transition period is critically important and what he does in his next 10 weeks is absolutely ...

COOPER: We've got take a quick break. We're going to continue to monitor these demonstrations. We'll have more with the panel and our reporters in the field. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:43:50] COOPER: Our breaking news, protests going on in number of American cities across the country tonight, demonstrations against the election of Donald Trump as president, a peer from what we've heard at this point to be peaceful. This one is the protest, we're looking at right now Philadelphia, we've also been looking at the New York City, in fact let's go to our Jason Carroll who joining us from outside Trump Tower.

Jason, this is a protest which has been going, and looks like there someone be taking of being -- taking away by police. This is been going on now for some time, moving about -- I guess what a mile or two now up to where you are at Trump Tower.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me just set this thing from where we are right now. We were initially right in front of Trump Tower Anderson. Right now, we're just around the corner from on 57th Street.

If you look, you can see there are literally thousands -- thousands of people blocked in the street right now. From 56 to 57th, it's a multi cultural crowd. Primarily a younger crowd.

You know, a number of folks out here, yelling. Obviously very upset about the results of the election. Chanting a number of things. Everything from popular vote, to popular vote. Of course talking about Hillary Clinton. Winning the popular vote. [20:44:58] Some people shouting obscenities about former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also Vice President Mike Pence, shouting about him as well. I want to see if i can bring someone in here.

Sir, hi there? What's you name? No. Can I spoke -- speak to you for a moment? No. Well very difficult sometimes to get some people to speak start moving through here, Anderson, but ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Could you just explain -- Jason, you said -- can you just go exactly where you are? Because my understanding this is in the middle of the street? I mean is this on 5th Avenue blocking off like ...

CARROLL: No.

COOPER: ... 56th-57th.

CARROLL: We are right around the corn owner 57th Street. As I said we were initially in front of Trump Tower, we had to move from front of Trump Tower. Right now we're on 57th Street. There are thousands of protesters. So many in this particular area here. We can show you the street here almost where Trump Tower is. Maybe you can get a better advantage point, very difficult from where we are.

But from 57th Street ...

COOPER: So is 5th Avenue itself blocked off? Because this is a major part of -- I mean this is a major intersection in New York City.

CARROLL: 5th Avenue along -- between 56th and 57th is completely shut down by these protesters. Again, 5th Avenue, where Trump Tower is between 56th and 57th, completely shut down at this point.

Excuse me, can we speak to you for a quick moment?

KELLY SANTOS, (PH) PROTESTER: Yeah.

CARROLL: I want to bring you someone right now, one of the protesters who are out here. What's your name?

SANTOS: Kelly Santos (ph).

CARROLL: Kelly, so obviously a number of very angry people out here right now. Give me a sense why you decided to show up here voicing your anger?

SANTOS: Well, since this morning actually I woke up upset, knowing that we're going to have a president that condones racism, fascism, bigotry. And as a woman and as a Latina, I feel very upset and oppressed. By having someone that condoned all of these bad things that we don't really stand for.

CARROLL: President-elect Trump now says that he represents -- he wants to represent people of all ethnicity's, all racist, and he says he wants to represent all of the country. Do you believe him? SANTOS: Well once you base your electoral race on bringing down certain groups and objectifying people, you can't just change that. You can't erase everything that you have said about women, gays, Latin-Americans, anything like that. The Blacks. Anything. You can't erase it.

CARROLL: And give me a sense of how long you and the rest of these protesters, do you have any sense how long they plan to stay out here tonight?

SANTOS: No, I'm not sure.

CARROLL: How long are you planning to stay out here tonight?

SANTOS: As long as I can. I'm from upstate New York.

CARROLL: Your from upstate New York, and I'm wondering also about voter turn out, one of the protesters here were shouting you all should have voted. You all should have voted. Did you vote?

SANTOS: Yes I did.

CARROLL: You did? Hillary Clinton.

SANTOS: Yes.

CARROLL: All right, Hillary Clinton also saying at -- also she's saying at this point, Hillary Clinton saying that what she would like to see going forward is to respect this president and work with him. What are your thoughts about that?

SANTOS: It's going to be a long, rough four years, but we're gonna have to do it.

CARROLL: All right, thank you very much. Really appreciate that. Anderson, want to throw it back to you.

COOPER: All right, Jason, thanks very much. Want to continue with the panel as we watch this.

I mean Van, at the end, that young woman saying not only that she voted but also that, you know, we're going to have to work the other.

JONES: Give them their opportunity. Listen, the Democratic process is voting. It's also free speech. It's also peaceful assembly, it's also petition for redress.

LORD: Yes.

JONES: Give them that. Give them a minute. Let's hear from folks and then let's try to bring this thing together. Listen, if it were the other way around I'd be saying the same thing. You would have Trump people out there protesting, we have Democrats saying if they're wrong and I'd be saying that they're right. We've got to listen to each other. I'm telling you if people have been sitting on a white hot stove out there and they have been hollering and hollering and nobody's comes to the rest cue. Finally somebody comes to the Trump voter's rescue. Nobody's coming to these kids' rescue.

BORGER: Well that's my question to you guys, Paul and Van and first of all Paul you were beating yourself up too much before ...

JONES: I agree.

BORGER: ... for saying you didn't get those voters out. You hear this young woman.

You'll hear this young woman, and she voted, but who in the Democratic Party now. There's a leadership vacuum. All bets were on Hillary Clinton. Didn't work out. Who in the Democratic Party now is going to speak to these voters, or these demonstrators, and say to them "we hear you, the Democratic Party hears you and here's what we have to do for midterm elections or four years or here's how we have to work with President Trump? Here's what we need to get done. Who does that now?

[20:50:05] BEGALA: Well, we shall see. That is the next four years will test in my party. But here's the point (inaudible), I'm watching this, I'm proud of free speech in my country, I'm worried it might get out of hand.

BORGER: Yup.

BEGALA: I'm ashamed that I and my cohorts failed these young people. But also more broadly. If the Democratic Party is not their voice and the voice of laid-off middle age white guys in mining towns and mill towns and manufacturing towns, what the hell use are we. So we failed.

I mean me as an institutional Democrat, right. We have failed these folks just the same way we failed so many people have voted for Donald Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: But in a way Paul, when you say "we didn't do our job" you make it sound as if it's just a tactical kind of organizational thing.

BEGALA: No, I mean more existentially. The whole reason I became a Democrat was because I care about ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I don't think the problem -- I mean again, you guys know this better than I do but was the problem with Hillary Clinton that there weren't enough people around her like helping her? It seemed like she had plenty of people breaking their backs or is the problem with her.

MCENANY: She wasn't an outsider. And this is -- I've always said the Democratic Party is four to eight years behind where the Republican Party was this election. You saw the voters, rise up against the party. And then you were very passionate about, if you're an outsider in your own party, and I know you saw this coming, too, and these voters are coming back at their party and they could rise up and empower an outsider much like Republican voters empowered Donald Trump four to eight years from now, coming back at ...

KING: Yeah.

MCENANY: ... what we saw.

KING: They're coming back to their country, Kayleigh they're not just going to back to their party, they're coming back to their country.

COOPER: What do you mean by that?

KING: That this town is the China shop, Donald Trump is the bull.

COOPER: Right.

KING: The voters decided to send the bull into the China shop knowing ...

COOPER: Washington, D.C.

KING: Look at the poll, even a lot of Trump voters are worried about his temperament or worried if his ready for the job. They want him to come into this town, they know it's going to be messy. They want him to break the China and then they put it back together later. They think humpty-dumpty needs to be shoved off the wall. And humpty- dumpty is Washington. Humpty-dumpty is us to a degree out there. They don't think we speak to them. They don't think we understand their life.

And so what is happened is, think of everything else in our society and how much it's been disrupted in the last 10 or 20 years. This town has tried to keep the political system in the staid two-party establishment system. They took the big rock and they turn it on the volcano -- both parties, and they hold it on as long as they could. Guess what the volcano just blew up and when you hold it that long, what it blows up, it's messy.

BASH: And just to keep your analogy going about the China shop, the problem that Hillary Clinton clearly had is that she was sort of delicately walking around the China shop with a duster, you know, just kind of -- you know, instead of just, you know, blowing through. And I ...

KING: I will.

BASH: ... and just.

KING: I'm sorry.

BASH: No it's OK. The point of about Hillary Clinton and the point that you were trying to make I think, Anderson, is it's not always about data. It's not always about modeling. It's not always about politic professionals. It's about the right candidate at the right time. You know that about everybody and if she is an institutional Democrat ...

BEGALA: Yes. BASH: ... whose name is Clinton in a time where people want change.

BEGALA: That's familiar (ph) is right. At the same time she has been those folks, she started out as a college kid activist ...

JONES: Right.

BEGALA: ... and until this morning as odd exhausted grandmother ...

COOPER: I'm sorry, but ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: ... who is alive today.

BEGALA: What?

COOPER: I mean, that may be true, yes I know that's her biography ...

BEGALA: But is in fact, this is a news network, you should talking about facts. This is a fact.

COOPER: Right, but I think for a lot of voters that feels like an awful long time ago when you're getting $270,000 speeches for Goldman Sachs.

BEGALA: No, I understand but she has spent her entire adult life ...

KING: Let me tell you ...

BEGALA: ... working on these issues. And so I'm not going to kick her now that she's done. So forgive me for that.

LORD: One of the things that I think that we're ignoring here, just speaking in terms of my life span, I remember -- I mean I have seen this dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of times before, the Vietnam War, civil rights, I mean, you can just -- you can pick the struggle and go through the '60s, '70s, '80s. I remember when there were a million people in the streets of New York City protesting Ronald Reagan on nuclear weapons. And they wanted right. And this was going on all over the world.

In our recent time period we had occupied "Wall Street". So it's always the same sort of situation and I have to say to touch on Hillary Clinton, to knowledge her roll in this, I march the time or two when I was a college kid.

So what I'm saying -- I mean the political impact of this aside from the argument with elite's and all this sort of thing, this was the kind of thing that elected Richard Nixon, because there was a backlash to it. And these folks were going out there demonizing -- Donald Trump was just a college kid. They were going out demonizing Hubert Humphrey for heaven's sakes.

So what I'm saying to you is there's nothing new here. There's nothing new. Donald Trump is the locus of this -- at this moment. But this goes on and on and on and on.

COOPER: Van?

JONES: I see it differently. I agree with you that we have a very proud protest tradition in America. I also acknowledge that progressives tend to march a lot more than conservatives.

[20:55:04] But I think there is something new here and I think what you have is a very big generation, this millennial generation is actually bigger numerically than the baby boomers.

COOPER: Right.

JONES: And a large chunk of it feels alienated from most of the institutions now. They feel alienated from faith tradition, they feel alienated from the political parties, they feel alienated from big media, and this is a challenge for the country. Now, the reality is most of these young folks are much more progressive than their party and much more progressive than you, sir. But they are ...

(CROSSTALK)

LORD: That's pretty much everybody.

BORGER: But one of the reasons ...

COOPER: Wait, let him finish.

JONES: But there is a big danger now that -- I'm going to tell you right now, they're not going to fall in line for Donald Trump, they're not going to fall in line for this Senate Democrats, they're not going to fall in line for -- they might listen to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for half a minute, but they've got some real grievances and what Kayleigh have been screaming for a year and a half, people have real pain and real problems out there and nobody's been able to fix them and until that happens you're going to see this.

COOPER: We have to take another break, we have another hour ahead of our coverage as demonstrators are in the streets, and at least 7 cities protesting the election of Donald Trump. We'll have more ahead.